


It's Gone

by Willowflower_Waterlily



Series: Evelyn and Malcolm Hawke (Series 2) [13]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, I'm Bad At Summaries, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowflower_Waterlily/pseuds/Willowflower_Waterlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evelyn is trapped in the Fade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Gone

Rising to consciousness, Evelyn does a quick self-inspection before opening her eyes. Content that everything is still in place, she looks around. The first thing she notices is the five Venatori are laying dead around where she is now sitting, their eyes all staring up into nothingness, their limbs all broken and at odd angles.

Standing up, she brushes the dust off her. Holding her hand out in front of her, she tries to focus on the anchor, and nothing happens. Evelyn looks at her hand, and only sees her palm. She tries to will her mind to connect to the anchor and still nothing. Rubbing her palm, she spins around not knowing what to do. The last time she entered the fade, she had people there to help her through it. There was already a rift open they could cross through. Taking several deep breaths, Evelyn decides to look around to see if there are any spirits that could help her find her way home.

As Evelyn walks through the twisted landscape, with its vividly colored abstract shapes and lime green sky, she is struck by how empty it feels. There are no spirits or demons around anywhere. She is completely alone, and it unnerves her more than anything else. When she had been in the Fade before, there was an abundance of creatures wandering around. Evelyn stops for a moment, hugging herself in order to keep her sanity in check. Her mind turns to her family, and seeing their faces in her mind’s eye gives her the determination to move on. She has to get back to them. Evelyn wants forever with Malcolm, to see the children grow up and live their lives.

Evelyn berates herself with each step for insisting on closing every rift when she senses him. Malcolm is somewhere nearby. Closing her eyes, Evelyn tries to will the Fade to bring her to him. When she opens her eyes again, he’s sitting on the ground in front of her, with his face buried into his knees. “Malcolm,” Evelyn drops down to her knees reaching out to him. He looks up, tears shimmering on his cheeks.  Leaning into him, Evelyn kisses his tears away ignoring her own.

“Are we?” The look in Malcolm’s eyes finishes the question for him. Are we dead? Evelyn shakes her head, the lump in her throat preventing her from speaking. She may not be dead yet, but there’s no way of knowing whether she’ll find her way home to him, to the kids. Malcolm must have seen something in her expression, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Can we get back?”

“You can.” Evelyn’s heart crumbles at the thought of dying in the Fade, of never getting to grow old with Malcolm. He pulls away from her, fear crossing his face. Closing her eyes for a moment, Evelyn takes a few steadying breaths. Looking down at her hand, she holds it out to Malcolm. “It’s gone. I’m in the Fade physically, and my anchor is gone.”

“There has to be another way? Maybe you missed a rift.” A brief glimmer of hope glows in Malcolm’s eyes, until he sees Evelyn struggle with how to tell him she closed them all. Evelyn looks away from him, the man that she loves more than life itself. One of them needs to live, but how can she tell him to move on? That he’ll be free to love someone else if she can’t make it back, that she wants him to find happiness again. Evelyn struggles to keep herself together, even though it feels like her heart is being ground to dust in a mortar and pestle. She forces herself to look into his eyes again.

“You need to go back, my husband.” Evelyn watches Malcolm shake his head, his eyes flooding with tears.

“I want to stay with you, my heart.” He tightens his hold on her, kissing her fervently. The taste of their salty tears mingles with that of their lips. Evelyn pulls away from Malcolm, hastily wiping her eyes.

“One of us has to go back, for the children.” Leaning against his body, Evelyn breathes deeply, trying to get a last smell of his scent. “I will do everything I can to get back to you and the kids, I promise.”

Evelyn pulls out of Malcolm’s embrace, gazing into his eyes. Unspoken questions linger there. What if you can’t come back? What if you die and I never find out? Just thinking the questions chills Evelyn to the bone. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shakes her head, trying to stop the chain of what ifs that follow questions like those. Malcolm’s hands cupping her cheeks stopping her downward spiral, “I love you, Evelyn Hawke.” Leaning into her, Malcolm softly kisses Evelyn. “I will always love you. Come home to me, please.”

The pleading tone in his voice tears her up inside. Evelyn prays she can find her way back to him and the kids. “I will always love you too, Malcolm Hawke.” Evelyn presses one last lingering kiss to Malcolm’s lips. “You need to wake up now.” Evelyn whispers to him, her voice trembling. Her eyes flood with tears, watching him reach for her one more time as he fades away. Evelyn stares at the empty space Malcolm had been, the pained expression that had been on his face burning itself into her mind.

Evelyn is unsure how long she has been wandering the Fade, trying to find a way, any way to go home. She looks down at her hand and curses the loss of the anchor. Why did she lose it now? Was the Maker, if he truly exists, toying with her? Did he want her to suffer as she has? Huffing, Evelyn forces herself to move forward. There must be a way out.

Inching a long, Evelyn knows she had passed the same oddly shaped rocks before. She pauses, praying she isn’t on a looped path. Evelyn doesn’t remember making any turns. She walked straight the entire time. Using her sword as a cane, she grips the hilt to steady herself.

Evelyn doesn’t remember the last time she had eaten or had a drink. Her stomach has long since stopped protesting its emptiness, and her throat feels as though she swallowed a desert. It surprises her that she has the ability to stand let alone walk. Her thoughts turn to Malcolm and their kids, and it is enough to make her take another step forward.

A green light appears under Evelyn. She tries to move out of the way, but the demon emerges too quickly, knocking her down. Evelyn loses her grip on her sword, and the demon tosses it away. Pinned down, she stares up at the demon. Why hasn’t it killed her yet? No one is going to save her, no one can. Evelyn closes her eyes and prays, tears escaping down the sides of her face. A breeze sends a scent past her nose. It’s musky and smoky, reminding her of home and her heart. Out of the corner of her eye, Evelyn thinks she sees Malcolm. Turning in that direction, she reaches out to him. Her pain is echoed in his expression. Evelyn’s mind turns to all the things she had hoped to experience with her family that she’ll never get to now. She tries to shout to him, to tell Malcolm that she will always love him, but no sound passes her lips. Evelyn feels the demon lift one of its arms, driving its hand into her chest. Her arm drops limply, and the Fade slips away.

Malcolm snaps awake, quickly sitting up. His vision swims as tears fill his eyes. He replays every second of Evelyn’s death in his mind, knowing he could do nothing to help but tearing himself apart for not trying harder. “I’m so sorry, my beloved.” Malcolm whispers, into the dark, his voice cracking. “I failed you, and… I broke my promise. Forgive me.” He wraps his arms around a pillow and wails into it, his body shaking with each sob.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I did saving throws for them both. Malcolm got a 15, an 18, and a 9. Evelyn got a 1, a 4, and a 10. 
> 
> Please feel free to give me a prompt to fill in the 20 years between the first and last stories. :)


End file.
